---
name: "Emeric Pressburger"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/emeric-pressburger"
fi1m_id: "emeric-pressburger"
imdb_id: "nm0696247"
tmdb_id: 37846
wikidata_id: "Q55230"
roles: ["Writer","Director","Producer"]
born: "5 December 1902"
died: "5 February 1988"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 6
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-25T03:46:10.584656+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Emeric Pressburger

## Identity

Emeric Pressburger

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/emeric-pressburger
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** emeric-pressburger
- **IMDb ID:** nm0696247
- **TMDB ID:** 37846
- **Wikidata ID:** Q55230
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeric_Pressburger, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55230, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0696247/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/37846

Writer and director. Born 5 December 1902 in Miskolc, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. Died 5 February 1988.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer, Director, Producer
- **Born:** 5 December 1902, Miskolc, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]
- **Died:** 5 February 1988
- **Active:** 1941–1948
- **Also known as:** Richard Imrie, Emmerich Pressburger, Imre Pressburger, Emmerich Preßburger, 에메릭 프레스버거, 埃默里克·普雷斯伯格
- **Titles on Fi1m:** 6: 5 directing, 1 writing
- **Frequently works with:** [Michael Powell](https://film.one/person/michael-powell.md), [Anton Walbrook](https://film.one/person/anton-walbrook.md), [Roger Livesey](https://film.one/person/roger-livesey.md), [Deborah Kerr](https://film.one/person/deborah-kerr.md), [Marius Goring](https://film.one/person/marius-goring.md)
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar (1 won · 3 nominated)
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emeric_Pressburger, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55230, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0696247/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/37846

## Streaming the US now

- **HBO Max:** [*The Red Shoes*](https://film.one/film/the-red-shoes.md) (92), [*The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp*](https://film.one/film/the-life-and-death-of-colonel-blimp.md) (91), [*Black Narcissus*](https://film.one/film/black-narcissus.md) (88), [*49th Parallel*](https://film.one/film/49th-parallel.md) (79)
- **Tubi:** [*I Know Where I'm Going!*](https://film.one/film/i-know-where-im-going.md) (88)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Emeric Pressburger

> The writing half of The Archers, Pressburger took ambition, desire and love seriously enough to build heaven around them, and wrote Germans as people when nobody asked him to. The speeches run long; the films are as good as any Britain made in the 1940s.

The person most likely to say something decent in a Powell and Pressburger film is a German. In *The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp* (1943) a British soldier and his German friend argue about honour, and the film is as fond of one as of the other. In *49th Parallel* (1941), a chase across Canada where stranded U-boat men are stopped every twenty minutes to be told why they are wrong, the lesson that lands is Anton Walbrook's speech at a dinner table. Pressburger wrote the words. He was a Hungarian who had written for UFA in Berlin, left Germany in 1933 and settled in Britain two years later, and he never seems to have believed that a country and its people were the same thing.

He met Michael Powell while rewriting *The Spy in Black* (1939), and from 1942 they worked as The Archers, sharing credit on 14 films. The run we rate highest is short and dense: *Colonel Blimp*, *A Matter of Life and Death* (1946), *Black Narcissus* (1947) and *The Red Shoes* (1948), four films in five years, none of them alike. *49th Parallel* comes before it and shows the join: plain and purposeful, with none of the strangeness that followed.

What Pressburger does is take a feeling seriously enough to build a world around it. A dancer's ambition in *The Red Shoes* is urgent and dangerous; a nun's desire in *Black Narcissus* has a Himalayan convent of colour to fight against; a love affair in *A Matter of Life and Death* is important enough to trouble the administration of heaven. British critics of the day found all this extravagant and un-British. They were half right, and the half they were right about is the reason to watch. Jack Cardiff photographed three of the Archers films, and the colour he and Powell put on screen makes the case Pressburger's characters keep trying to make in words.

The words are the reservation. Victoria Page's producer in *The Red Shoes* declares things about art that Moira Shearer's dancing has already shown us. The lovers in *A Matter of Life and Death* are made to carry relations between Britain and America, and the speeches explain the film's humane feelings after the actors and the colour have made them clear. Yet Walbrook at that dinner table moved us more than propaganda has any business doing, because it is the one moment in *49th Parallel* where somebody stops representing something and simply speaks.

He said a film should have a good story, a clear story and "a little bit of magic". The magic was Powell's and Cardiff's as much as his. The clarity was his, and so were the speeches. Start with *A Matter of Life and Death*, and when somebody begins to explain the Anglo-American alliance, look at the colour until they have finished.

## Biography

Emeric Pressburger (born Imre József Pressburger) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director and producer. He studied engineering at the universities of Prague and Stuttgart before working as a journalist in Hungary and Germany and as a scriptwriter in Berlin and Paris. He settled in Britain in 1935.

From the late 1930s he collaborated with director Michael Powell. From 1942 they shared equal credit for writing, producing and directing films under the banner of their production company The Archers. Their best-known works include *49th Parallel* (1941), *The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp* (1943), *A Matter of Life and Death* (1946), *Black Narcissus* (1947), *The Red Shoes* (1948) and *The Tales of Hoffmann* (1951). Pressburger received an Academy Award for best original story for *49th Parallel*.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (6)

### Directed (5)

- *The Red Shoes* (1948), Fi1m 92, as Extra at Cannes train station (uncredited) — [page](https://film.one/film/the-red-shoes.md)
- *Black Narcissus* (1947), Fi1m 88, Writer, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/black-narcissus.md)
- *A Matter of Life and Death* (1946), Fi1m 92, Screenplay, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/a-matter-of-life-and-death.md)
- *I Know Where I'm Going!* (1945), Fi1m 88, Writer, Producer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/i-know-where-im-going.md)
- *The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp* (1943), Fi1m 91, Director, Writer, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-life-and-death-of-colonel-blimp.md)

### Wrote (1) — the average rests on these

- *49th Parallel* (1941), Fi1m 79, Screenplay, Scenario Writer, Original Story — [page](https://film.one/film/49th-parallel.md)

## Complete filmography (62)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *A Pretty British Affair* (1981), as Interviewee
- *The Boy Who Turned Yellow* (1972), Screenplay, Producer
- *They're a Weird Mob* (1966), Writer
- *Operation Crossbow* (1965), Screenplay
- *Behold a Pale Horse* (1964), Novel
- *Miracle in Soho* (1957), Writer, Producer
- *Ill Met by Moonlight* (1957), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Men Against Britannia* (1957), Writer
- *The Battle of the River Plate* (1956), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Oh... Rosalinda!!* (1955), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Twice Upon a Time* (1953), Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *The Tales of Hoffmann* (1951), Director, Writer, Producer
- *The Elusive Pimpernel* (1950), Writer, Producer, Director
- *Gone to Earth* (1950), Director, Producer, Screenplay
- *The Small Back Room* (1949), Director, Writer, Producer
- *The Red Shoes* (1948), as Extra at Cannes train station (uncredited) · Director, Producer, Writer, Story — Fi1m 92, [page](https://film.one/film/the-red-shoes.md)
- *“The Red Shoes” Sketches* (1948), Writer
- *The End of the River* (1947), Producer, Script Supervisor, Writer
- *Black Narcissus* (1947), Director, Writer, Producer — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/film/black-narcissus.md)
- *A Matter of Life and Death* (1946), Director, Screenplay, Producer — Fi1m 92, [page](https://film.one/film/a-matter-of-life-and-death.md)
- *Wanted for Murder* (1946), Screenplay
- *I Know Where I'm Going!* (1945), Director, Producer, Writer — Fi1m 88, [page](https://film.one/film/i-know-where-im-going.md)
- *A Canterbury Tale* (1944), Writer, Director, Producer
- *The Volunteer* (1944), Director, Writer, Producer
- *The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp* (1943), Director, Writer, Producer — Fi1m 91, [page](https://film.one/film/the-life-and-death-of-colonel-blimp.md)
- *The Silver Fleet* (1943), Story, Producer
- *Squadron Leader X* (1943), Story
- *One of Our Aircraft Is Missing* (1942), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Breach of Promise* (1942), Screenplay, Story
- *Rings on Her Fingers* (1942), Screenplay
- *49th Parallel* (1941), Screenplay, Original Story, Scenario Writer — Fi1m 79, [page](https://film.one/film/49th-parallel.md)
- *Atlantic Ferry* (1941), Screenplay
- *Contraband* (1940), Writer
- *Spy for a Day* (1940), Writer
- *The Spy in Black* (1939), Screenplay
- *The Silent Battle* (1939), Writer
- *The Challenge* (1938), Screenplay
- *The Great Barrier* (1937), Writer
- *Port Arthur* (1936), Writer
- *Port Arthur* (1936), Adaptation
- *One Rainy Afternoon* (1936), Story
- *Under Western Eyes* (1936), Adaptation
- *Parisian Life* (1936), Writer
- *Parisian Life* (1935), Scenario Writer
- *Monsieur Sans-Gêne* (1935), Writer
- *My Heart Calls You* (1934), Writer
- *The Million Hunters* (1934), Screenplay
- *Child, I'm Happy on Your Coming* (1933), Writer
- *And the Puszta Gleams* (1933), Writer
- *The Old Scoundrel* (1932), Writer
- *A Girl and a Million* (1932), Writer
- *Gilgi: One of Us* (1932), Writer
- *Sehnsucht 202* (1932), Writer
- *The Beautiful Adventure* (1932), Writer
- *Ronny* (1931), Writer
- *Emil and the Detectives* (1931), Screenplay
- *I'd Rather Have Cod Liver Oil* (1931), Writer
- *The Small Gap* (1931), Scenario Writer
- *The Little Escapade* (1931), Writer
- *The Scoundrel* (1931), Screenplay
- *Farewell* (1930), Writer
- *The Great Desire* (1930), Writer

## Gallery

- ![Birth place of Emeric Pressburger in Miskolc, Hungary (2026)](https://film.one/media/person/59071/gallery-7ccfa48822f1.jpg) Birth place of Emeric Pressburger in Miskolc, Hungary (2026) — Alensha, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Emeric_Pressburger_House.jpg/1280px-Emeric_Pressburger_House.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Emeric Pressburger](https://film.one/media/person/59071/gallery-74390cc4b0e8.jpg) Emeric Pressburger — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 1 won, 3 nominated

- 1949: Best Story (nominated), for *The Red Shoes*
- 1943: Best Story (won), for *49th Parallel*
- 1943: Best Writing, Original Screenplay (nominated), for *One of Our Aircraft Is Missing*
- 1943: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated), for *49th Parallel*

### BAFTA Film Awards — 1 won

- 1981: BAFTA Fellowship (won)

### Berlin International Film Festival — 1 won

- 1951: best original music (won), for *The Tales of Hoffmann*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/emeric-pressburger